• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

  • Archive
  • DC Guides
    • DC New 52
    • DC Events
    • DC Rebirth
    • Batman Guide
  • Marvel Guides
    • Omnibus & Oversize Hardcover DB
    • Marvel Events
  • Star Wars Guide
    • Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present)
    • Legends Comics (1977 – 2014)
  • Valiant Guides
  • Contact!
You are here: Home / Personal / topics / thoughts / bad breakfast of hallucinatory champions

bad breakfast of hallucinatory champions

January 13, 2016 by krisis

I close my eyes and drift into the hallucination like a piece of flotsam being carried upward by the wave of music flowing in my ears. It lasts for a second, maybe five, but it feels like I’ve glimpsed a whole day of some alternate earth where an arbitrary detail of the laws of physics or nature has been altered.

The trolley lurches to a halt. I lose the alternate earth. It disappears in a wink, along with any memory of it. We are two stops before mine – enough time for two, maybe three, alternate days before I absolutely must pull the ripcord and bobble my way to the front of the vehicle.

Does this happen to you? I always assumed it was universal – that adding music to a state of half-awakeness yielded a kaleidoscope of unknown realities. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it is a form of synesthesia that I’ve always had, which might explain why I am and have always been so obsessed with music, and also with the literature of psychedelia.

This week at work we discussed Breakfast of Champions.  We have a book club at work, that’s a thing I should probably tell you. I hated it, a little. The book that is, not the club. I love the club, partially because it inspires me to do things like read my first Vonnegut novel despite mostly hating it while I read. (Later, other members of the club confessed they thought it was a terrible idea to read Breakfast of Champions as a first exploration of Vonnegut, but they did not want to intercede in our plan.)

I didn’t like the book for a few different reasons. Primarily, it was basically the worst in medias res ever. It says what will happen at the end, spends an entire book describing the rather dull steps leading to that point, and then the thing that happens turns out to be relatively inconsequential. It’s an entire book of prologue to some interesting thing of which we only catch a glimpse.

Despite hating it a little, I’m very happy that I discussed the book with other humans(/robots). It helped me to pull out the things I loved about it. One was the synopses of the bizarre sci-fi stories of author Kilgore Trout, our of our protagonists (sort of). He invents stories of alien worlds that would fit perfectly in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Our club debated which otherworldly tale was our favorite. The world of eating petroleum where real food is considered pornography. The world where all art is assigned an arbitrary value and venerated appropriately. The world where language is as beautiful and distracting as a song, so anything serious like a law must sound deliberately ugly.

As I popped out of the final micro-hallucination of my commute, it occurred to me that my fractional alternate dimensions were a lot like Kilgore Trout’s stories. Each one of them change just one or two fundamental things about reality, all seemingly droll in summary but potentially dull if explored at length.

Maybe having a form of synesthesia is just a way to know you are a robot programmed to ingest music and output the fantastic.

Related posts:

  1. X-Men Reading Order Guide – Era #2: Second Genesis
  2. X-Men Reading Order Guide – Era #12: Endangered Species

Filed Under: thoughts, Year 16 Tagged With: Vonnegut

Previous Post: « The Ultimate 1989 Mix Tape, by Swift & Adams
Next Post: From the Beginning: David Bowie – The Early Years (1964-1966) »

Primary Sidebar


Support Crushing Krisis on Patreon
Support CK
on Patreon


Follow me on Twitter Contact me Watch me on Youtube Subscribe to the CK RSS Feed

About CK

About Crushing Krisis
About My Music
About Your Author
Blog Archive
Comics Blogs Only
Contact Krisis
Terms & Conditions

Crushing Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Events Guide

Marvel Omnibus Guide

Spider-Man Guide

DC Comics

  • Drag Race France Season 1 – Pre-Season Power Rankings
    Drag Race France's debut season features 10 queens I've never seen before, and I've ranked them all based on their promo looks and Instagrams. […]
  • What makes a good Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official release or 5e-Compatible supplement?
    There's an ever-increasing amount of D&D 5e-compatible material in the world, but how exactly do you choose what's right for your table? […]
  • Music Monday: “We’re Good” – Dua Lipa
    Dua Lipa's"We're Good" makes a major impact without a tricky song structure or vocal fireworks. It just needed a few contradictions. […]
  • extra sleep sunday
    Parenting programs your brain to believe that sleeping extra means danger. No one explained this to me before I became a parent. […]
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 6 – Total Ru-quest Live: recap, songwriting analysis, & power ranking!
    When it comes to Total Ru-quest Live Girl Groups and Night of 1000 Dolly Partons drag, it's a risk to take things too literally. […]
  • Harbingers of Failure
    I thought I liked odd stuff because of my unique brain wiring. I'm sure that's true, but it might also be because I'm a harbinger of failure. […]
  • New for Patrons: Jane Foster Guide – The Mighty Thor & Valkyrie
    A Jane Foster Guide to her time as a nurse, doctor, Thor, and Valkyrie is about to be incredibly relevant with the release of Thor: Love & Thunder! […]
  • the spider in the mirror
    I didn't think too much about the spider in the mirror until it was gone. […]
  • The Infinitely Expanding World of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
    What does it mean to be 5e Compatible, and how does it tie in with my torturing a Dungeons & Dragons email list back in the 90s? […]
  • Slow Song - The Knocks with Dragonette featuring AquariaMusic Monday: “Slow Song” – The Knocks with Dragonette
    When I listen to "Slow Song" by The Knocks with Dragonette I feel instant nostalgia for the dingy, neon-lit adult world I remember from my youth, long since lost to the passage of time. […]

Layout copyright © 2017 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

Links from Crushing Krisis to retailer websites may be in the form of affiliate links. If you purchase through an affiliate link I will receive a minor credit as your referrer. My credit does not affect your purchase price. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to: Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), eBay Partner Network, and iTunes Affiliate Program.